The present invention relates to the use of communication networks, such as the Internet, and more particularly to techniques for sensing when a user exits from a particular web site, and initiating an action upon the user's exit from the web site.
As a result of the blossoming electronic commerce industry, an increasing number of organizations, including businesses and individuals, are now using the Internet as a medium for selling products and services. In the World Wide Web (the “Web”) environment, the products and services are generally offered for sale using hypertext documents called “web pages” which can be accessed by users of the Internet. These web pages are usually written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and may incorporate any combination of text, graphics, audio and video content, software programs, and other data. Web pages may also contain hypertext links to other web pages. Each web page is uniquely identified by an address called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that enables users of the Internet to access the web page. Web pages are typically stored at web sites on computer systems, called web servers, coupled to the Internet. A web site may store one or more web pages.
Computer systems connected to the Internet may be characterized as “clients” or “servers” depending on the role the computer systems play with respect to requesting information or providing information. Client computers are computers that typically request information from a server computer which provides the information. Server systems are typically responsible for receiving information requests from client systems, performing processing required to satisfy the requests, and for forwarding the results corresponding to the information requests back to the requesting client systems. The processing required to satisfy the client request may be performed by a single server or may alternatively be delegated to other servers connected to the Internet. A computer system may function both as a client and a server.
Users typically access and view web pages using a program called a “web browser” which executes on a client computer coupled to the Internet. Users may access web pages by providing URL information to the browser, either directly or indirectly. The web page request is then communicated to a web server storing the web page. The web page corresponding to the URL is then downloaded to the requesting client computer and may be viewed by the user via the browser. Examples of browsers include the Internet Explorer browser program provided by Microsoft Corporation, the Netscape Navigator browser provided by Netscape Corporation, and others.
Due to the rapid increase in the number of organizations transacting business over the Internet, the success or failure of an organization generally depends on the organization's ability to acquire and retain customers online. In order to improve customer retention, organizations frequently request feedback from users regarding the quality of products/services offered by the organization, the ease of doing business with the organization, and the like. The user feedback is used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty, provide strategic and operational information about the organization, provide statistics related to the organization's operations, and provide other information which facilitates customer relationship management.
Organization web sites generally solicit user feedback via data forms and surveys (“forms” in general) which are presented to the user. Several techniques are conventionally used to present the forms to the user. According to one technique, the forms are stored as static web pages with fixed URL addresses. In order to invoke this type of form, a user has to find the URL for the form, provide the URL information to the browser to retrieve the form, and then provide feedback on the form. Since this takes time and extra initiative on part of the user, the effectiveness of this technique to collect user feedback is very limited.
According to another technique, URLs corresponding to the form web pages are embedded as links in one or more web pages stored by a web site. In order to access a form, the user is required to select and click on a form URL link to access the form web page. However, since the URL links are passive and require user initiative to select them, the effectiveness of this technique is also limited.
According to a more recent technique, forms are presented to the user using “pop-up” technology. Pop-up forms may be presented to a user automatically when the user accesses a specific web page. The pop-up form is usually presented in a separate window, browser, frame, or page. The web site may be configured to present a pop-up form to every user accessing a web site, to every “Nth” user accessing the web site, to a random sample of users, or the like. In this manner, the form is actively presented to the user without requiring user action or initiative. The user is required take some action to respond to the form, even if only to close the pop-up window displaying the form.
Although pop-up forms present advantages over other techniques discussed above, they also suffer from several limitations. For example, when displaying a form to a user, it is desirable that the contents of the form reflect and be relevant to the user's interactions with the web site. Conventional pop-up forms are not capable of keeping track of the user's interactions, and thus their contents cannot be personalized for a particular user. As a result, the form presented to the user may be inappropriate for the particular user. It is also desirable that a form not be presented to the user until the user has completed all interactions with the web site so that the user's flow of interactions is not interrupted by the pop-up form. However, conventional pop-up forms have no way of determining if the user has completed his/her interactions with the web site. Consequently, conventional pop-up forms may be presented while the user is browsing the web site, and may thus interrupt the user's activity at the web site.
Thus, there is a need for techniques which can track a user's interactions at a web site, and sense when the user exits from the web site. It is desirable that actions, such as presenting a form to the user, be initiated only when the user exits from the web site. It is also desirable that the actions initiated be customized based upon the user's interactions with the web site.